released into Sto-vo-kor until Torres completes her journey. Tuvok attacks Torres again with a bat'leth, but she surrenders rather than fighting back. Miral identifies this as the first step in her path. She informs Torres that they will reunite either in Sto-vo-kor or when Torres returns home. Torres is resuscitated and embraced by Janeway. Production The 43-minute, 56-second episode was developed from a story by Ronald D. Moore and Bryan Fuller, who wrote the teleplay, and was directed by Mike Vejar. David Bell edited the music, and Richard D. James was the production designer. The concept for the episode developed from Moore's failed pitch for the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Soldiers of the Empire", which would have seen the Klingon starship Rotarran travel to Gre'thor. Moore's idea was rejected as "too philosophical for this late in the season". The barge would later appear in Star Trek Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Cryptic Studios based on the Star Trek franchise. Moore contributed to only two episodes in Star Trek: Voyager, the other being "Survival Instinct", the immediate predecessor to "Barge of the Dead". Discussing why he left the series, he said he wanted to further develop more of its story arcs and characters, particularly focusing on the "internal strife among people trapped aboard ship(s) without any reasonable hope of finding sanctuary anytime soon". Fuller also left Star Trek: Voyager after the completion of the episode, citing disappointment in his lack of control over the show's direction. He said he "began to get itchy and wanting to tell stories with a little more emotional depth", and that he disliked how syndication discouraged longer story arcs spanning multiple episodes. Fuller's episodes frequently focused on "character development through adversity". ExtremeTech's Joel Hruska wrote that the show's later seasons would typically feature Seven of Nine, the Doctor, and Janeway to the detriment of the rest of the cast, while Fuller would draw more attention to the more underused characters. While discussing the episode, actress Roxann Dawson described the storyline as a "classic Star Trek story" due to its focus on family. The episode features Karen Austin as Torres' mother Miral, and also includes Eric Pierpoint as Kortar, who ferries the souls of the dishonored on the Barge of the Dead, and Sherman Augustus as the dead Klingon Hij'Qa. Analysis TrekToday's Edward James Hines identified "Barge of the Dead"